Increase Mather in History of Drugs in America

Increase Mather (1639-1723) was an influential Puritan minister who played a powerful role in shaping the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the father of another major Puritan religious leader, Cotton Mather.

In 1686, he complained about alcohol's influence upon the colony: "It is an unhappy thing," he wrote, "that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us. They that are poor, and wicked too, can for a penny or two-pence make themselves drunk."